In the past, consumers were required to physically visit stores and shopping malls to purchase products. Currently, with the expanding use of the Internet and World Wide Web, there are many web pages allowing users to browse and purchase merchandise without ever leaving the computer terminal. For consumers who dislike shopping, are limited in time, live in rural areas where shopping is limited, or for some reason cannot physically visit the mall or store, shopping online is an ideal way to purchase products.
Mail order catalogs and television shopping channels have attempted to address this need in the past. However, mail order catalogs are limited in their shopping choices and television shopping channels are not readily available in every city and/or consumers do not have control over what items are viewed to buy.
There is an increased presence of three dimensional (3D) virtual worlds on the Internet, described using a virtual reality modeling language (VRML). VRML is based on certain types of polygons defined by a set of parameters. However, the interaction with remote virtual environments on the Internet is still extremely limited. One common approach is to first download the entire VRML 3D world to the client. Then the client renders the scene locally. This approach is successful as long as the environment is not too complex; otherwise it causes a critical penalty in the downloading time. This prevents the use of photo-textures, which are necessary for a photo-realistic impression. It should be emphasized that the downloading time is required for every change of session, for example, if the user moves to an upper floor in a shopping application or to another planet in a video game.
Furthermore, a user may have to connect to each store's web page to shop at the store. This requires the user to open a new browser each time, which takes time and space on the computer. Thus, there is a need for a way to enhance a user's shopping experience to make shopping online more efficient and appealing.